


A Messenger in the Rain

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Listen, Lily, I know you're going to think I'm crazy but I need you to listen to me. Malfoy and Avery are after me right now- I saw something I shouldn't have or something like that b-but-” James stopped abruptly to take a breath, “-God, Lily, it's worse than I imagined."





	A Messenger in the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> ((Slight TW for mentions of rape and school shootings))

“Christ, Potter, what the hell are you doing here?”

Lily Evans was trying her goddamned best to enjoy a Saturday night alone at home. For once in her life, her parents weren't home and she didn't have any homework and just wanted a moment to breathe, but of course, the universe wasn't even going to let her have that. It was dark outside, well past sunset and too late to go out alone. The weather was depressing as ever, cloudy and foggy and raining like no tomorrow, so she was trying to make the best of a night in. Even that, however, was interrupted when she heard the doorbell ring and opened it to find a soaking wet James Potter on the other side. 

“Can you please let me come in, Evans?” 

Lily had prepared herself for a cheesy come-on line or an embarrassing serenade or some other pathetic attempt to “win her heart” but not this. The one and only pain in the ass and bane of her existence saying please? Under normal circumstances it would have been cause for suspicion, but now Lily wasn't so sure. James was wet and visibly shivering from cold, his shirt was in tatters, and there was a cut on his face that was still bleeding. But above all, he had a look in his eyes Lily didn't think she'd ever seen in them before: fear. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay. You can come in.”

She ushered the freezing boy into her home and motioned for him to sit on the couch. Maternal instincts taking over (she swore she wasn't motherly, but anybody at Hogwarts could remind you of the three months she replaced Sirius's mum the second he ran away to live alone junior year), she put the kettle on for tea and brought James a blanket. Flopping down on the cushion next to him, she began to speak softly. 

“I think you owe me an explanation, James.” Lily wasn't sure why she decided to use the boy's first name, and was honestly kind of embarrassed it slipped out. She decided to ignore it and continued, “What the hell is going on?” 

“Listen, Lily, I know you're going to think I'm crazy but I need you to listen to me. Malfoy and Avery are after me right now- I saw something I shouldn't have or something like that b-but-” James stopped abruptly to take a breath, “-God, Lily, it's worse than I imagined. They're actually gonna do it, they’ve got all their shit ready and everything and-” 

This time, it was Lily who cut him off.

“Do what, James?” she inquired hesitantly, already scared of the answer she was going to receive. 

James inhaled shakily.

“They're going to shoot up the school.”

Both teens suspected that the event was coming for a while now, ever since 7 students were shot dead last month at Beauxbatons in the next town over. Thankfully nobody either of them knew had died, but the news had rattled them and the other students nonetheless. Neither of them spoke a word, as if they were already observing a moment of silence for the students that were going to die tomorrow. 

“There's one other thing, Lily. I'm not too sure how to tell you this but-” He pauses, searching for the right words before giving up and pulling out his phone instead. 

James hands the cracked phone to Lily, screen set to show the blurry image he took before Malfoy and his gang had spotted him. She squints at it, trying to make out the outline of the student. Whoever they were, they were obviously holding a gun, but their face was concealed by a mask. But Lily and James only knew one person with greasy black hair like the one sticking out of the cap in the photo.

Lily sighed, leaning back against the couch in defeat. She wasn't sad, per say, or even angry. She looked more disappointed than anything. James blinked at her in confusion 

“I thought you'd be a little more upset that Sniv- Severus was involved in this thing.” 

“I guess I kind of, I don't know, suspected it. He's been different since last year. Started talking to Malfoy and Avery, started joking about what happened to Alice at that party.” Alice was one of Lily's best friends, and she remembered clearly that night at Lockhart's party when she found Alice on the basement floor, clawing at her skin and crying incoherently about Rodolphus Lestrange forcing her legs apart. Alice wasn't ever quite the same after that. 

For once in his life, James looked like he regretted his actions. He knew damn well that it was probably his teasing that pushed Severus Snape to go to Malfoy, and he honestly felt like he was to be blamed for the whole damned thing. The kettle whistled, and he watched Lily rise from the sofa to pour the tea. Christ, did he wish he wasn’t such an utter shit of a fourteen year old. Habitually running his fingers through his already messy black hair and chewing on his lower lip, he let his thoughts spiral into the dark void of blame and self loathing. He really made Severus’s life miserable, didn’t he? Couldn’t he have just let him be? Maybe then they wouldn’t be potentially walking to their deaths tomorrow. 

His train of thought was broken when Lily handed him a cup of tea and sat next to him again. She frowned at him and said,

“Don’t do that.”

“What?” 

“You’re blaming yourself for what’s going on, I can tell. You weren’t exactly the paragon of virtue in your youth, James, but you were fourteen. The important thing is that you changed and he didn’t. Truth be told, Sev was going to go down that path regardless of your interference. Don’t give yourself all the credit, Potter.”

James smiled wryly at the gallows humor. He didn’t know Lily had it in her to joke about murder, but then again, he learned something new about the redhead every day. 

“You’re implying that you want some of that credit, Evans?”

“He asked me to go to homecoming with him. I said no, he called me a whore that would sleep would anyone except for guys that were nice to me.” 

“And you’re still friends with that asshole?”

 

“Heavens no, I haven’t spoken to him since.”

The conversation left a bitter taste in James’s mouth. He couldn’t believe anyone would say such things about Lily fucking Evans, the most dynamite girl he’d ever laid eyes on and the subject of his infatuation since freshman year. He had the urge to knock a couple of Snape’s teeth out, possibly break his nose, but that would be an insult to Lily, honestly. That girl didn’t need anyone to protect her. She was more than capable of doing the fighting, should it be necessary. Yet another reason to love her, he supposed. 

Lily offered to let James crash here for the night so he could stay out of Malfoy’s way (which he accepted with a raised eyebrow that was met by Lily throwing a pillow at him and a laughing retort of “Not like that, you daft cow!”). Both slept on adjacent sofas in the living room, across from the dying hearth. They made their temporary beds in silence, the gravity of the situation settling. Inexplicably exhausted but unable to sleep just yet, they lay awake together, staring at the white crown-moulding of the Evans residence in the dark. 

“Y’know, we have to tell someone about this.” Lily spoke after a while.

“They’ll never believe us. Or worse, they won’t care.”

The last words to break the silence for the night were Lily’s, filled with determination and a spark of anger.

“Then we’ll make them.”


End file.
